Kilometer-range nonlinear propagation of femtosecond laser pulses

Ultrashort, high-power laser pulses propagating vertically in the atmosphere have been observed over more than 20 km using an imaging 2-m astronomical telescope. This direct observation in several wavelength bands shows indications for filament formation at distances as far as 2 km in the atmosphere...

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Veröffentlicht in:Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics, 2004-03, Vol.69 (3 Pt 2), p.036607-036607, Article 036607
Hauptverfasser: Rodriguez, Miguel, Bourayou, Riad, Méjean, Guillaume, Kasparian, Jérôme, Yu, Jin, Salmon, Estelle, Scholz, Alexander, Stecklum, Bringfried, Eislöffel, Jochen, Laux, Uwe, Hatzes, Artie P, Sauerbrey, Roland, Wöste, Ludger, Wolf, Jean-Pierre
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Ultrashort, high-power laser pulses propagating vertically in the atmosphere have been observed over more than 20 km using an imaging 2-m astronomical telescope. This direct observation in several wavelength bands shows indications for filament formation at distances as far as 2 km in the atmosphere. Moreover, the beam divergence at 5 km altitude is smaller than expected, bearing evidence for whole-beam parallelization about the nonlinear focus. We discuss implications for white-light Lidar applications.
ISSN:1539-3755
1550-2376
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevE.69.036607